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English translation at the end of Urdu article

Lost next generation in UK ??

The Pakistani who came to live in UK more then forty years ago, have first generation who are born in UK are going through some difficult situation where they do not not accept to be either fully Pakistani or British.

While the youngsters are at school they are given full briefings to be British and taught British values on how to live, but as soon as they come home from school they are told how to be a good Pakistani and the Pakistani values, this straight away has a clash of culture and dilemma for a child growing up in UK, that his parent's upbringings are totally different from the education he gets while at school, college or university. The child finds asking him self what to follow.

For example in England when we have Pakistan playing England in cricket match, the youngsters born in UK wear Pakistani cricket shirt and shouts " Pakistan Zinda bad " and when the same youngster you see at the match in Rawalpindi is wearing a England cricket shirt or Manchester united or Liverpool football shirt. In a local saying a person sailing on two boats always drowns, well that seems to apply to the next generation as well like their parents, that they are also following on same foot steps. Currently in UK the Pakistani youngsters in majority are behind in education compared with other communities living in UK and are target for gangs and drug problems.

Living in UK culture it is also important to have your Islamic faith strong, it is no good to be called Muslim, if you do not follow the farz of Namaz and the Islamic farz which one has to follow, but at the school age the parents totally unaware of the problems and when a child becomes old enough to get married in most cases weather they marry in UK or Pakistan weather it is arranged or love marriage it seems to fail and in most cases now the youngsters refuse to get tied up with marriage.

It is a thought, when we see all this with our next generation living in UK, where we have gone wrong, who is to be blamed, the youngsters, parents, UK education, society, or we are blaming each other as the only way out to save us blaming our selves, we are always telling others how to live but do we ask ours selves are we dong same for our personal life. It is easy to blame the education system, where they spent eight hours but it would not be fare as the children spend remaining time at home which is more then the school, we also can not blame parents as in our culture parents are never wrong, so who is responsible for the current crisis.

If you start the story from the beginning, when our 1st generation arrived in UK, then you may be able to understand what has happened to us and our families, When our 1st genration arrived in UK, as economic migrants, one person of the family was in UK and he had to bring up large number of family members, he had to get his sisters married, pay for parents land cases, buy land as well as making new house to live in and when he brought his wife to UK, the same story started for him again as he had to buy house here, the problem was where he was sending all the money to Pakistan in past, now he had to pay expenses in UK as well, in order to keep the balance our 1st generation started to work overtime and part time jobs to look after everyone and balance the books.

The 1st generation while being at work most of the day time, never realised what is happening with their children while they are at school or what is going on in their personal life, as they never had time and why they should worry, as when they were growing, their Abba ji never kept check and balance either on them. But one thing they never crossed their mind, was that when they were youngsters all the village elders were treated like parents, you could not get away with minor mischief, and in UK no one had anytime for anyone else and children at the tender age had no guidance at a time most needed for a child. The father had spent so much of his life time in earning pound, that you would see him in Masjid on only eid day and that leads to us to another thing, if the father was being responsible and was busy doing his duty to his family to make the life of all the Khandan better what was the mother's role.

Mothers always play important part in a Childs life while the father is away on duty, a mother is with the child as a guide, When our ladies came to UK most of them had tough life financially . When they arrived in UK they felt free at last, it as haven for jewellery shop owners and clothing shops, if you see a Pakistani lady she will have at least 12 to 14 bangles and various other jewellery items as it seems the jewellery shop has opened in your own front room, and it seem not to end there, as the jewellery regularly had to be changed in design, this all frantic and addiction in buying came because when they were living in village they never had that sort of finance or authority to do as they could do it now.

In order to finance extra spending the women of our parents generation started to work and to be with shoulder to shoulder with man of the house. Most of women, due to lack of education had only cleaning jobs available which either were early mornings or late evening after office hours. This effected our youngsters either they were going without even breakfast to school or when they came back from school the mother had to go to work and told the kids " Maseeti zaroor jayan " the youngster had full evening to do what he wanted as both parents were in pound chakkar. The youngsters instead of going to Masjid started to wonder in streets and ended up joining gangs or having friends who were drug addicts. The mothers them selves were not able to go to school meetings or even find out that their children were going to school or not. Also the youngsters had downfall when the mother went to Pakistan for 6 or 8 months all the educations system went out of the window, the youngsters went to Pakistan and did not go to school and when they came back they were behind in education from rest of the class.

When the youngsters had reached 16 both parents nieces and nephew were also ready to get married to their cousins in UK. Another downfall was created by the parents for their own children, the mother would give the child full freedom and wanted the youngster to marry her nephew or niece, the father also came on scene who would promise their children house and the rest if they married his choice of partner, Both mother and father would spent many years fighting each other over a lost cause, fact was that the youngster in UK did not want to get married to either of the parents choice. Both parents who had fought battle for many year now realised what has happened to their own flesh and blood. The youngsters in UK were also very clever, when they saw both parents fighting each, then they had taken full advantage of situation.

The situation now is that the full damage has been done, how can we come out of it, we have lost our generation for something that was never ours. How can we rectify a mistake of almost 20 years continues.

1. First of all the parents need to take a step back, after years of fight with no achievement, let the youngsters make the vital decision and it is about time to change your self that will be start of a recovery.

2. It is about time both parents need to end the war of words between them and unite, you are in autumn of your life, you both need to care for each other and make example to your children.

3. Should not swim against the water currents, listen to your children and and have confidence in them, and not to be ashamed of what they do.

4. The parents always give love to their children and should not be traded with marriage deals, Families back home should be made aware of the situation and should not promise them something you can not deliver don't let them down.

5. If you travel to Pakistan, buy one thing which is most important for your children, buy them a Quran translated in English, this will be a path of recovery as reading Quran makes one realise true facts of life how one should live....